


Everything Burns

by 2cool4u



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Interracial relationsip, OC cusses like a sailor, PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-03-30 21:55:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3953212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2cool4u/pseuds/2cool4u
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Aramora wanted was her honorable discharge from the Army Special Forces, but nothing ever did go the way she planned. She got thrown into his chaos, but really, who could complain?</p><p>GOING THROUGH MAJOR REWRITE.<br/>1-4 so far.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why haven't I been writing? because I don't feel confident with this story. So I'm rewriting. Please tell me if you like it better?

She walked around the building the meeting would be taking place at in 10 minutes, making sure that there were easy exit points. This was going to be the final meeting with the Governor, he was offering her a honorable discharge, it came with a price and she knew it, but it’s worth it.

After 6 years of serving in the Special Forces, and the loss of all 5 members of her unit, she was done with the Army and isn’t ever going to look back. 

So here she is, making a deal with the devil, also known as Governor Armstrong, crooked and dirty, known for taking bribes. But he got shit done in the community so everyone looked the other way of how he got new schools built with no funding. Activist citizens stood up and some even got as close as taking him to court, but they always mysteriously ended up backing out and moving away. 

She finally took a seat in the caffe near the window, eyes automatically skimming roof tops for snipers.

“Hi my name is Katelyn, I’ll be your waitress. Can I start you off with anything?”

Ara winced, the girl was too enthusiastic happy people just pissed her off nowadays. Always looking at the bright side of things.. geez.

“Water will do for now.” She tried to smile as enthusiastically as the waitress sounded, but she knew the smile looked broken and out of place on her face.

“Coming up.” She smiled, and Ara wondered how many hours she’d have to practice in the mirror to even look as half as happy as that girl.

After couple minutes of scanning the rooftops and looking for suspicious civilians with bulges in their jackets, and Katelyn the waitress sitting her water on the table in front of her, the chiming of the coffee shop door caught her attention along with the icey breeze the made her shiver. The Governor finally decided to join her. 

“Ms. Fulmori.” He said with his creepy voice while waving his body guards to stand by the door. He took a seat across from her while unbuttoning the lone button on his charcoal black suit and crossed his legs.

“Governor,” She mocked. “I sure hope you didn’t bring your boy’s for my sake.” She flashed a sarcastic smile and wonder if it looked like the waitresses. Governor Armstrong smiled a gross smile that reminded her of the chesire cat.

“I have all the papers you require,” he paused to tap the briefcase he had sat on his lap, Ara’s face practically light up without a smile, “But, I thought long and hard about the service I shall require from you, and I have to say it’s a great deal considering what I’m handing over to you, I have become soft in my days in office.” He looked down to try and sell it but she wasn’t going to buy it for one second.

“Get on with it, Governor.” 

“I will call upon you one day, don’t give me that look, I mean business, child. I will call upon you one day, it doesn’t matter if it’s a month from now, or 5 years. I will call upon you. You’re going to want to answer that phone, my dear.”

Ara’s face scrunched up, he was an actual reincarnarion of Lucifer. But in Satan, the Lord of Darkness’ defense he seemed like a nice, misunderstood dude.

“As long as the papers are legit, I’ll sit when you tell me to sit.” He smiled again and Ara would bet money she doesn’t have that he practiced that smile in the mirror. 

“Now that’s what I like to hear, if only everyone could share your values,” he handed her the papers and like an alcoholic she snatched the good stuff from him and quickly scanned through the papers, “The United States really did a good job on you soldiers, so obedient.” Ara’s lip quivered and it took everything in her to not flip the table and beat the shit out of him. The Governor took her silence as a sign to leave, “Enjoy your time as a civilian Ms. Fulmori,” he stood up and buttoned the button back up, Ara stood up with him, “there’s always a place on my team. These guys need a woman’s touch in the workplace.” 

Ara slid the papers into her leather jacket “I’ve chosen to never work for the government again.”

“Smart girl.” He flashed her another chesire cat grin, “I’ll see you soon.. or not.” He turned around and waved his finger in the air in a circle at his bodyguards, the opened the door and as soon as he got a foot out of the door he fell back.  
Ara was momentarily confused until she released there was blood gushing from his forehead. Shot, he got shot. 

The world had once again slowed down, Ara has seen many people get shot, most from her own doing but this was unexpected. Someone one wanted him dead, and more than likely all of the people he has made deals with meaning that she is also on the list of people who are about to get blasted in the face. 

It didn’t take longer than 2 seconds for Ara to escape through one of the emergency exit she had scoped out just minutes before the meeting. 

Ara stopped as soon as she got into the alleyway to collect her thoughts for a mere second, but it was too later, a sack was placed over her head and before she could fight the assailant blind, she was already knocked out from something that smelled awful. 

 

 

Ara woke up with her hands and feet tied to a chair. It took a moment before she realized and began forcefully pulling at the restraints. 

“It’s about time.” a voice spoke up causing her and her adrenaline to jump. The sack was still over her head and she continued to pull at the ropes around her wrists. All she needed was one hand out and she could maybe survive this. Just maybe she had a chance. 

“Where am I?” She gave a final tug at them before giving up. 

“You’re in a motel just a couple miles out of the city.” The voice answered honestly then snatched the barrier off her face, she kept her eyes closed. It’s basic knowledge that if you see your kidnapper’s face, they’re going to kill you. So she sealed her eyes shut. 

“So why am I here? You had the chance to kill me back there just like Governor Armstrong. So why am I alive?” She snapped.

It became silent, all she could hear was her heavy breaths and heart pounding in her ears. 

“The Governor’s death was my mission.” He said. Great, now we have assassins thrown into the mix here in DC. And shit, double great because Ara was now looking at the person who kidnapped her. He’s rather large, not the largest she’s ever fought but she had a 50-50 shot of fighting her way out of this, maybe breaking a couple of bones along the way but she isn’t ready to die yet, especially for someone as fucking stupid as Governor Armstrong. 

“And now your mission is to kill me, so get it the fuck over with and put me out of my misery.” Another way to survive is tricking your capture into thinking you’re okay with death. 

“No,” he looked at her, causing Ara to immediately look at the wall on her left, “you aren’t my mission.” 

“Then help me understand why I am sitting here with my arms and feet tied?”

“I need your help.” He sounded desperate and somewhat genuine. 

“You need my help?” her eyes tightened and she finally gathered the balls to look at her capture, he just nodded, “you have a funny way of asking for help man.” She shrugged her shoulders trying to gesture to the fact that she’s tied up. 

“I didn’t want you to run away.” She didn’t know what to say. 

“Well, you left my mouth unrestrained and you didn’t think about that part did you because I’m about to start screaming.” She smiled sweetly before screaming at the top of her lungs. “HELP ME! HELP MEEE!”

In a quick movement the man forcefully brought his hand to her mouth so hard it tipped the chair she sat on back on two legs and he decided to lay her down on the floor still strapped to it with a metal hand over her mouth. Wait- metal?

“Shut up! Shut up!” He said sternly as he muffled out her screams. But Ara continued until she physically couldn’t from her dry throat hurting her. “Stop struggling before you make me do something we’ll both regret” He squeezed her cheeks painfully tight and Ara squinted her eyes, she’ll shut up- for now. Until her throat recovers so she can once again scream again. 

He gave her a look before slowly taking his hands off her mouth. 

“Now, like I said, I need your help.” 

“With fucking what?” She was becoming frustrated with this entire situation. “I don’t want to help you with shit! You just killed my only fucking chance of being discharged from the fucking armed forces honorably!” began struggling against the ropes and the chair she was now laying on and began talking to mainly herself, “Oh god the fucking papers don’t mean shit now. They don’t mean shit. Oh god.” She rolled her head back painfully against the cement floor. 

“I-” 

“Yes! You! You fucking ruined everything and you want me to help you?” She scoffed at this game he was playing. 

“Yes?” He said honestly, like he had no clue. 

“That’s not how the world works,” She spoke in a very condescending voice, “you don’t go around ruining people’s lives and then ask the person you ruined for help because, well, fuck YOU!” 

He scooted away from her and leaned against the motel bed as they sat in silence, Ara still huffing and puffing. “I haven’t even told you what I need help with.” He spoke after a moment. 

“And I don’t want to fucking know! You know why? Because I’m not going to help you. So make a choice right here and now, you either kill me and dump my body at the white house doorsteps or get the fuck away from me so I can figure out how to get my life back together.

“I need help running away from the people that turned me into this.” He held out his metal...arm. And rotated it around. 

“We’re all running from something.” Ara’s voice finally returned back to normal as she looked away from him and stared up at the motel ceiling. “And we usually do it on our own before kidnapping random people who can’t help with what you want them to.” They both looked at each other. “I can’t help you with something like that because I’m still running away from all the fucked up shit in my life, I can’t have both of our demons on my shoulders unless you want me to eat a bullet.” Both of them looked away from each other and Ara continued staring at the ceiling and him at the wall in front of him. 

Both Ara and her kidnapper didn’t have a plan ‘B’, their plan ‘A’ failed and they both have no idea where to go from this point. 

“We can help each other.” She bitterly laughed. 

“Step One from running from… whoever, don’t talk to old contacts, ever. I need to find another corrupt Governor that will get me honorably discharged. Do you know how hard that’s going to be? All you need to do is get on a cargo plane and fly to a place you’ve always wanted to go.”

More silence, “We can’t help each other, what do you say you we go our separate ways and never look back on this moment?” He stood up and took a knife out of his utility belt and stared at it, Ara squirmed. 

“Look..” he dropped the knife within her hand reach and stepped over her, opened the door, and disappeared into the night. 

Ara grabbed the knife and began cutting the ropes before he changed his mind.


	2. Curiosity Killed the Cat, Satisfaction Brought Him Back

Ara made it home in one piece, she didn’t exactly know if everything that had just happened was a figment of her overly dramatic imagination or not, so she turned on the tv and every channel, even Disney Channel, was talking about Governor Armstrong’s assassination along with the girl who was meeting him for lunch and ran out the second the bullet hit his head. The Federal government will be showing up at her doorstep any second now. 

The feds always questioned her and her unit when in the forces about missions they could never prove, so this will be nothing, The Governor was just offering her a job on his personal protection squad. Easy-peasy. 

 

She walked to her kitchen and sat the knife that the man gave her to free herself on the counter and began savaging for any food she could find, she wasn’t much of a grocery shopper. In fact, she hated going out into the general public overall, people got way too close to her liking and there are people who smell like fritos and onions, parents let their children run freely and eughh. Humans are too disgusting beasts, why did she sign up to protect their freedom? Well that’s a whole other story. 

There was nothing in her kitchen except ramen noodles and 2 week old milk in the fridge, so she had no other choice to wait until she’s done with the feds to get some take out. She didn’t want them to think she was actually running, so she decided to stay.

Ara made her way to her beat up couch and closed her eyes, she wasn’t much of a sleeper either. But she took 20 minute eye rests a day or night and called it a full night rest. 

 

She drifted off for what seemed like 5 minutes but was actually an hour, and a new record, when a knock on the door woke her along with a “Ms. Fulmori FBI, we’d like to talk.” 

She walked to the door and opened it. “Ms. Fulmori.”

“We talking here or you taking me to the station?” Ara got straight to it. 

“Here’s fine.” The Special Agent spoke and shoved past her into her own home, never foreplay before the action with these boys. 

When they walked in, their eyes scanned around for any signs or clues for their case as usual. 

She closed the door and leaned against the wall a couple feet from where they were. “You’re in my home and I haven’t the slightest of your names. Is Quantico changing their guidelines for a simple introduction?” 

“I’m Special Agent Marsh and this is my partner Willis,” the taller one said through a brick like face. “Care to sit?” 

“I’ll stand, get to the questions.” Ara tapped her foot impatiently. Causing Agent Willis to frown. 

“What were you doing with the Governor?” Agent Marsh asked. 

“He was offering me a job.” Ara answered. 

“We weren’t aware there was an opening?” Willis said.

“He wanted a female bodyguard with just the amount of training his males had. I guess he was for the whole equality thing like stated in his campaign.” She shrugged.

“Did he tell you why he wanted extra protection?” 

Ara shook her head. “No, just that I had a spot on his team.” She answered. 

“Why you?” Willis asked again.

“Well Willis you probably didn’t have a chance to read my file because the entire thing was classified because my file is waaaaay above your clearance level. Agent Marsh you’re an ex-Marine and that much is obvious, I can sniff a jarhead from a mile away, so I’m guessing you saw a couple words on the papers but not much.” Willis looked to his partner and put his hand on his hip where his gun was holstered, Ara laughed, “6 years in the Special Forces boys. You guys just aren’t important enough to know about my life, now you can take me down to your little lab and fingerprint me but they’re just going to disappear again. Your government will make that happen for me. Regardless of how I got discharged, yes Agent Willis, I was dishonorably discharged. But moving on, Governor Armstrong offered me a bodyguard position because I’m bad ass as fuck. Anything else?” Ara was actually enjoying herself for the first time in months. 

“Yeah, why’d you run?” Agent Willis asked. Ara looked at the rookie agent then to Agent Marsh who was mentally scolding his partner. 

“It’s like what I said just went right over your head. I. Am. An ex-Special Forces soldier. I just got out 6 months ago. Meaning 6 months ago was the last time I got shot at. So when I get back to my homeland and see motherfuckers shooting Governors in the head, I’m fucking out, because I don’t have anything to return fire with. Now once again, anything else?” 

“No m’am, that’s it, thank you for your time and service to this country.” Agent Marsh grabbed the rookies arm and dragged him out of her apartment, muttering under his breath. 

Ara giggled to herself as the door closed behind them and she decided to not do anything for the rest of the day, and that grocery shopping could wait for tomorrow. It still hadn’t hit her what had happened just a couple hours before and it would be dangerous to go out into public not fully comprehending everything.

 

Sleep was something that never came natural to her, since a child she’s always been an insomniac, but when she was tired she could sleep anywhere at anytime during anything. It’s a blessing and a curse being able to sleep during gunfire. 

But she was actually tired. Maybe it was just because of the mental exhaustion that she was going to have to deal with in finding a new corrupted governor, or maybe she was just tired from getting 9 hours of sleep every week, 36 hours of sleep a month. It wasn’t exactly clear, and neither was her mind. 

But the amount of blood, sweat, and tears put in too getting Governor Armstrong on her side took 3 months of sleepless nights, she isn’t prepared to do it again. Hell, maybe she was just going to have to deal with it, deal that she’s a disappointment to this country, but more importantly: her father. 

 

There was a faint knock on her door that startled her awake. She shrugged it off as her drug addict neighbor getting home from hitting the crack pipe, until she heard it again- then again. It was definitely her door being knocked on. Not many people visited her.. mainly because she didn’t know many people. Her sister had a key and just helped herself in, her neighbors were scared of her. Maybe it was the feds wanting to arrest her. Nah they don’t have shit on her. 

Ara pulled herself out of her messed up bed and swung the door open, “I have nothing else to tell you age-” She was immediately shut up from the sight of the man who kidnapped her previously from this day stood at her door, with another man slumped over leaning against him. 

“What the fuck? I told you we can’t help each other!” She whisper yelled at him, and the other man groaned. 

“I found you another Governor.” He said motionless. Ara stood there dumbfound. 

“What?” Was all she could manage to spit out. 

“You said you needed another Governor to get what you wanted so I got you one.” He nodded towards the almost-unconscious man in his arm. 

Ara’s mouth fell open and she just moved out of the way for him, but he didn’t quite get the gesture, “Get in!” He walked in dragging the.. Governor in with him. He laid him down on the couch and turned around facing Ara who had no idea how to go about this. 

“You can help me now,” He stated, “I helped you.” 

Ara ran her hand back into her messy curly bed hair, “I just had the Federal government here about 9 hours ago, 12 hours ago you kidnapped me and 13 Governor Armstrong got shot in front of my face. This is the most productive day I’ve had in a long time.” Ara walked to the kitchen and grabbed the first bottle of booze she could grab and took a large gulp of it. She had no idea where to even start with anything. 

“What did you tell him?” She asked about the unconscious Governor on her couch. 

“Just that he was going to honorably discharge you.” He answered, he spoke so emotionlessly. 

“Then why is he unconscious?” Ara squinted. 

“He kept moving during my efforts of getting him here.” She smiled and laughed which triggered something in him to crack a slight hint of a smile along with her. 

Ara took another gulped and walked past him to stand in front of the Governor. 

“I don’t even know your name.” She said continuing to watch over the Governor. 

He stood silent and motionless, when Ara looked at him he looked as if he were in deep thought but she didn’t say anything. Went from watching the Governor to him. 

“I don’t- I don’t know.” He finally spoke after a moment.

“You don’t know your name?” His blank stare answered for him. “Do you know who hired and trained you as an assassin?” 

“Hydra.” He answered. 

“I guess that’s where we start.” Ara walked to her bedroom. 

“So that means you’ll help me?” He took a step towards the direction she went but stopped when she walked out with gadgets he’s never seen before. 

“Yes. I will. I will help you disappear.” She began setting her stuff up on the bar of her kitchen. 

“I want to know who I am.” He stood in the same spot. Ara looked back at him. First he wants to disappear, now he wants to know who he is. If any of this were even remotely normal she would force him to choose one or the other, but since he hand delivered her a Governor and she was honest to God curious as a motherfucker, she’d make an exception. 

“I’ll call you John, for John Doe, for now. Until I figure out who you are.” He nodded slightly at her. 

“Thank you Aramora.” He said. 

“Just call me Ara.”


	3. Whiplash

John Doe stood in her kitchen fiddling with the knife he gave to release herself from the restraints he had previously put on her. 

As he was running the blade across his nail tips she couldn’t hide the fact that it was a little unsettling, he was an assassin after all. But if you really thought about it she was also… in a different way, he was more of mercenary while she killed the name of America. But regardless, a professional killer with a knife in their hand really puts pressure on her to watch his every move while looking at the computer screen. 

“Smile.” Ara demanded blandly and held her phone up to his face. 

He flinched and grip tightened around the tactical knife, she pretended to ignore it, and took the picture before she’d get gutted, and connected the phone to the usb and uploaded it to an anonymous website. 

He was giving her a curious look from the kitchen so she explained, “I’m taking a picture of your face so I can run it through facial recognition so we can find out who you are exactly.” She looked up from the screen but still, he said nothing. “So tell me anything you know, any small detail you might have overheard and don’t think it’s important to share but I am telling you right now to share it so I can decide if it’s important or not.” He froze in thought, hopefully thinking of all the small facts she acquired. 

He blinked a couple times, mind going back to a place he obviously didn’t want to be in,“I don’t remember anything.” he said after a moment. 

Ara squinted her eyes, “Listen, I’m just trying to help you here, but whatever.” she looked back at the computer screen, his face on one side and the other side a slew of people going through the recognition process. 

“I’m,” he started, trying to find what best to say, “I’m telling you the truth, I don’t remember anything. All I know are my missions, all I know is what I’m supposed to do. I don’t know names and I don’t overhear conversations.” 

Ara didn’t really know what to say, she never really does when people start feeling bad for themselves, she usually rolls her eyes and thinks about how she’s had it worse, much much worse. But he has a right to feel like shit, so she responded by searching for ‘Hydra’ in another window. 

“Hydra is a worldwide organization created around the known time of the second World War, dedicated to one thing only: global domination.” Ara read out loud, it’s almost as if every single breath he took, blink, and fidget of his hands she had become hyper-aware of. “Global domination,” she repeated, “normally I would laugh because as a child I thought I had the means to make the world my empire, but ever since I’ve gotten home I’ve heard nothing but weirdos coming out; the guy in the suit, the alien hammer guy and can’t forget about the green guy. I’m actually not surprised that there was an organization created to take over the world.” 

“I didn’t know.” He muttered. 

“None of us really know the people behind the scenes of our missions, and we don’t have time to question them, we only have time to be their 50/50 chance of an answer, hoping that it’s a good one and that we aren’t going to get killed for shitty reasons.” Bing. Bing. Bing. 

The search had been complete, “We got a match.” He was already by her side by the time she finished her sentence. She exited the browser and brought up the other screen, full of anticipation, so curious but she also knew that all the information she was about to read could be used against her in a court of law. 

“James Barnes, born in 1930, oh that can’t be right we’ll try the search again.” 

“Wait,” he grabbed her hand before she could exit out of the files that popped up. 

“Why?” She pulled her hand back immediately, she wasn’t too fond of human contact. 

After a moment of him reading he stuttered out, “I think this is me.” Ara looked back to the screen and read the old Army file from World War 2 and laughed. 

“There is no way this could be you.” She said but he didn’t hear her concentrating on the screen for too long, so she followed his gaze and continued to read through the records of his battalion and even his death. “If you died back in the forties how could you be here? This isn’t your profile.” 

“It is. It’s me. I know it.” 

“How do you know if you didn’t know who you were 5 minutes ago?” 

“I just.. know. It feels right. I can’t explain it.” Ara looked at him as if he were off his rocker, pun intended, if it were actually him, he would need a rocker to get around. But it isn’t him and this is ridiculous to even consider. 

“It says this guy died from a train fall.” He looked up from the screen, remembering that day. He looked to almost be in a trance. 

“I didn’t die though.” Ara’s eyes widened and laughed. 

“Well you’re not this guy, James Barnes was born in 1930 so he did die, there is no way he could be-” Ara then snapped out of it. The flag waver is a man out of time also. He was born around the same time before discovered in 2011. If something like that happened to him, this could be the instance here. 

“What?” He stepped towards her as she took a step back. 

“I guess you could be James Barnes.” 

“What makes you change your mind?” 

“Something like this has happened before.” 

“What?” He became almost excited. 

“Someone from back then is here right now but not as a 90 year old with wrinkles, as a 90 year old who doesn’t look a day over the age of 30.” Ara was now internally screaming and externally pacing around her apartment. 

James er, stood motionlessly by the computer as Ara continued to pace. 

“Look I appreciate the.. the Governor you brought over for me who may or may not be dead on my couch right now but I don’t know what the fuck I’m getting into and I don’t think I want to get into this.” Ara took a knee down and checked the Governor’s pulse, right as her hand touched his neck he snatched her hand and yanked her down wrapping a forearm around her neck. 

“I’ll kill you, I’ll kill both of you!” The Governor hollered. 

James leaped forward to knock him out again but Ara was already jabbing her elbows into him, so he stood back watching the deadly blows that couldn’t feel too great. She finally got free by sliding her arm up through his arm and breaking the contact, she rolled off of him onto the ground and before the Governor could reach down for her, James punched him square in the face which put him right back out. 

“Fuck!” Ara kicked her coffee table in anger. “Fuck fuck fuck! What the fuck did you get me into?!” 

“I.. I don’t-”

“All I fucking wanted was to get out of the Army with a clean record. That’s all I wanted. Now here I am with a knocked out Governor on my couch who is now going to put me in a maximum security prison for the rest of my life! And I don’t even know what the fuck you are!” 

“I’m sorry. I’ll leave.” He began to turn around and walk towards the door. 

“No. You. Won’t.” Ara said through a clenched jaw. She was actually giving herself whiplash from all this. “I’m just complaining about all this shit, you got me into this, Governor here has seen both of our faces and so we’re stuck together and we both have to figure out what the fuck we’re going to do with him.”


	4. Papa Ain't Raise No Coward

“Should we kill him?” James asked after what felt as if a 20 minute silence of both of them standing over the Governor who was still out. 

“Do you think we should?” She looked at him to which he responded by pursing his lips and shrugging. “We can but we’re in New York, someone will see us with his body.” 

“Nobody saw me when he was over my shoulder.” He had a point. 

“Good enough. You doing the dirty work?” 

He stayed silent, he would if he needed to. “If needed..yes.” 

“Oh god just by the sound in your voice I know you don’t want to, but I don’t want to either! I don’t kill Americans. Why did you even mention if you don’t want to do it?” She whisper-yelled at him. 

Before he could answer they were interrupted by the Governor starting to stir around below them and groan.

“Shit!” Ara said right before punching him unconscious again. “Don’t give me that look, I panicked! We don’t have a plan!” She said defensively to which he responded by unknowingly rolling his eyes. 

“We either kill him and ditch his body or we return him home, but he will talk,” James then got that thousand mile stare before saying, “they always talk.” 

“We’ll threaten his family, he’ll think we’re going to kill them if he comes out to the public.” 

James looked at her, “Do you think that’ll work?” He asked, but she responded by chewing on her bottom lip. 

“We will have to make it since we both don’t want to kill the man.” Ara chuckled and he had a tad trace of a smile upon his lips. 

 

 

When they got back into her apartment from threatening the shit out of the Govenor to which he more than likely shit his pants, Ara went straight to her computer and James followed behind her which struck her as unusual. “Since you’re part of the deal was a no-go, you still owe me a Governor.”

“And you still need to help me get away from Hydra.” Ara growled at herself, she had completely forgot about that part of the deal. 

“Fine.” She muttered and opened the laptop screen.” 

“Did you have a backup plan if things failed with Armstrong?” 

Ara felt like an idiot, “No… He was so corrupt I knew he would make a deal with me, so I scoped out everything I needed to know about him, interviewed all his past victims and such, I was going to make things work with him. I had no other options.” 

James thought over what she said, “How did you even get him to agree?” He finished a yawn. 

She snorted and chugged down some whisky, “I knew I could get that dirty piece of shit because he was a man who loved having people with different strengths to do his dirty work, he liked the fact that people owed him favors, and I was highly capable of doing whatever he wanted without it being traced back to him, or me for that matter.” 

Ara placed a search on James to see if she could delete anything from the internet about him; news articles about his assassinations, or even sightings. 

When she opened up the first article that popped up, her eyes bulged, he looked exactly the same right now as he did from the 1940’s and it still came as a shock to her, that this was real and he was in the room with her right now. The article talked about the Howling Commandos and all the good they did in WW2, but the picture of him and Steve Rogers made her stomach turn. She knew she was way over her head. 

It had been a couple minutes of just reading the article and she had thought James was right behind her looking over her shoulder, but when she glanced he was standing there. With his eyes closed. 

He literally fell asleep standing up. Legit eyes closed and everything. Ara watched for a minute, somewhat dumbfounded that it was possible for humans to fall asleep standing up, and slightly jealous that she couldn’t do it because it would have been handy when she was in the forces. 

She stood up slowly and stood in front of him, watching his eyes roll back and forth under his eyelids. And whether it was because she was just so curious about him, or if she was just down right feeling playful, she snapped her fingers right in front of his face, and everything went blurry. 

It took a good 20 seconds for Ara to figure out that she had her face pressed to her kitchen counter right next to her laptop. She thought something had happened like she had a stroke or just a temporary loss of consciousness, but when she tried to stand up it was now obvious that James was literally holding her down. He had grabbed the hand she snapped in front of his face and held her wrist, extended out straight behind her back as if he were going to snap her arm just by controlling her wrist. His human arm pressed hard right between her shoulder blades. She’s completely at his mercy and there was nothing she could do except miserably flail her legs back since she was on her tippy toes and leaned over the counter, her limbs were useless and other hand couldn’t slide it’s way out from under her own body. 

“James!” was all she could groan out in pain. As soon as she said his name he quickly snapped out of it and let go, darting across the room.

Her feet hit the ground and she stayed their stunned that she had actually let her guard down for a moment and didn’t see it coming. When she turned around he was leaning against the wall as if it would happen again. 

“Don’t ever touch me again.” Ara breathed, he caught her at a moment of weakness, again. This was the second time she couldn’t escape from him and she was terrified because that has never happened before. She was bred to believe that there was no such thing as a moments of weakness. Because weakness is for cowards, and she’s no coward. 

“I didn’t mean to..” He looked as if he were aching, in actual physical pain from what he had done. 

Ara sighed after a moment, she knew the truth, it was her fault and she would have reacted the same way. Actually, she has done the similar to people who got to close in the grocery store, “I know you didn’t it was my fault for being all up in your personal space, I would have do the same thing.” He’s dealing with demons from the past, and present. He was just confused as to what they were because he had no idea what he’s dealing with let alone how. Just like she is. 

“I could have hurt you, I’m.. I’m sorry..” He could have, and was probably going to if she didn’t speak up when she did. 

“Many people could have hurt me, but they didn’t…” Ara said but he didn’t say anything, and the silence became too awkward for her, “Look you’re tired, you literally fell asleep standing up and I had no clue that that was possible, I’m guessing you have nowhere to stay and breaking into a cheap motel that prostitutes conduct their business on doesn’t sound flattering. You can crash on my couch because I’m not letting you out of my sight until I get another Governor and I get you out of America. We had a deal and I’m a woman of my word.” James remained motionless, leaned up against the wall opposite of her. 

Ara then walked off into her bedroom and grabbed her winter blanket in her closet and a pillow off her bed, when she walked back into the living room he hadn’t moved an inch. 

She sat them down on the couch and turned around to leave back to her room, “Look, just go back to sleep. We’ll figure all this out in the morning.” She said. 

When she exited the room James still stood against the wall for a couple seconds longer, he let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and slowly walked towards the couch and sat down with his head in his hands. He had no idea who and what he’d gotten himself into.


End file.
